Awais Ahmed on Pixxel's Rapid Rise and its Hyper-focus on Climate Data

Hyperspectral startup Pixxel has had a rapid rise since Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal co-founded the company in 2019 at the Birla Institute of Technology in India. The satellite company is now fresh off a Series B funding round with Google onboard as an investor, and is receiving images from its first three satellites in orbit. In the past year, the company has grown from 45 employees to 130, with offices in Los Angeles and Bangalore.

CEO Awais Ahmed talks with Via Satellite about the company’s mission to impact climate action with hyperspectral data, and how the democratization of space enabled Pixxel’s success. Awais, 25, talks about his journey from a village in India to leader of a space startup, and shares the company’s plans for the next few years.

VIA SATELLITE: Tell me about yourself and your background. What led you to start Pixxel?

Ahmed: I was born in a village about five hours from the city of Bangalore in South India. There were not a lot of opportunities in the village where I grew up. We got our first access to the internet in eighth or ninth grade, that was a world-changing experience. I was always fascinated with space. I remember my dad used to get children's encyclopedias of the universe, and space kept me fascinated.

I got the first outlet for working in space technology when I entered college, which is also the first time that I flew out of the state. It was a college in the middle of a desert called the Birla Institute of Technology, one of the best private colleges in the country. I was pursuing an integrated Bachelor's and Master's in mathematics. I wanted to be a physicist.

In the first year of college, I was part of the student satellite team that was working with the scientists at the Indian space agency [Indian Space Research Organisation], learning how to build a satellite. [I learned from] scientists who had built and launched and operated their own satellites. I learned how to build a satellite and how you think differently when you're building space hardware.

In my second year of college, SpaceX was conducting a Hyperloop competition. They had a 1-mile long vacuum tube at their headquarters in LA and it was an open challenge to teams around the world to build the pod. [A group of about 30 students from my university participated] and I became the engineering lead. That was a very steep learning experience — building and designing something that no one had built before. There was no 'how to' guide on the internet. You can’t Google ‘How to build a Hyperloop pod.’ Building from first principles was a formative learning experience. When we were in LA, they took us on a tour of the SpaceX factory. That's when I decided that I wanted to work in space technology for the rest of my life, it seemed to be my calling.

VIA SATELLITE: Then how did you start Pixxel?

Ahmed: After the competition in Los Angeles, I came back to the university in India and I decided that I want to work in space, one way or the other. Working at NASA or SpaceX was not an option because of ITAR [International Traffic in Arms Regulations] control, hiring in most cases happens with only U.S. citizens or permanent residents. And the Indian space agency, I had heard from people who had gone there that it was very bureaucratic in the sense that it would take a lot of time to make contributions. That left just one option — do something of my own.

I read as much as I could about space technology, what was happening. There were so many companies building rockets, it didn't make sense to start one more rocket company. I had to find something that was realistic in the short duration of the next five to 10 years, but also something that a college student could do without raising billions of dollars. Satellite data seemed like it fit that bar. I looked at the different sources of data from Planet Labs, Maxar, Airbus, and so on.

While working with that data, I realized that existing data can't see some problems — gas leaks, oil leaks, where forest fires might spread, soil nutrient content. Hyperspectral data, thanks to a NASA satellite that had been launched, could do all of those things. But no one was doing it commercially. That was the genesis of the idea for Pixxel. We said there seems to be a big gap in what Earth observation needs to be and what is possible today. We reached out to a few customers globally in cold emails or LinkedIn posts, asking these potential users of data who are already using some existing sources, whether they would pay for hyperspectral. Those responses were quite positive. That's when we realized that there was a market.

VIA SATELLITE: Were you still in college when you started the company?

Ahmed: Yes. The company officially started in February of 2019. We graduated in June of 2019.

VIA SATELLITE: Did Pixxel develop the hyperspectral sensor in-house?

Ahmed: We did. We tried to see if there were hyperspectral cameras that we could procure, but we quickly realized that all the hyperspectral cameras were either built for medical purposes on the ground or built for drones. When you put it in space, the quality becomes so bad that they are unusable. We said, let's design something from the ground up, from first principles to work from space. The camera breaks apart into the optics, sensors and electronics. The electronics were the easier part. We didn't have to do anything novel, but we had to figure out how to build the optics and the sensor.

We also designed the satellites from scratch, but that was more out of necessity. Procuring satellites from anywhere else would have been way more expensive than if we did it ourselves. From a long-term standpoint, we wanted to have the internal capability to build and iterate on satellites, rather than depend on someone external.

VIA SATELLITE: What has the response been from customers and potential customers since you recently started receiving images from your first three satellites?

Ahmed: Even before we had satellites up, a few customers reached out through our website. For example, Rio Tinto, one of the mining customers, reached out through our website. We knew that there was pent-up demand for this data, but we had to prove as a company that we could build and deploy hyperspectral cameras from space.

With the first satellite at 30-meter resolution, we matched what NASA had done with their hyperspectral satellite at 30 meters. Then we made it three times better at 10 meters resolution, which is what we have in space today. The fact that we were able to do that for the first time, and share that data with the customers has given them a lot more confidence in us.

The positive response has been overwhelming. Right now, our satellites are completely booked out for the next six to eight months. We have about eight to 10 customers that we are already serving that take up all of our capacity. The customers are paying a much higher premium in a dollar per square kilometer value than they generally pay for satellite data, just to get early access. Of course there are minor issues with the cameras, but everyone understands that these are just the first three satellites. This is what we use to learn to build a commercial satellite.

VIA SATELLITE: There are a few companies targeting hyperspectral data, but not as many as those targeting optical imagery or SAR. Why do you think that is?

Ahmed: I think there had to be proven demand in the market before someone could build and deploy something like this. Even five to six years ago, I would say there was no sensor technology and hyperspectral spectrometer technology that would enable anyone to do it at the cost and the size we are talking about. It was only space agencies that could afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a huge satellite that was scientific and experimental in nature. But a private company couldn't do that. We have reached a point where thanks to the miniaturization of sensors in the past four to five years and the technology to build hyperspectral cameras has progressed that we can build a satellite for 50 kilograms that does imaging much better than a 300 to 500 kilogram NASA satellite.

VIA SATELLITE: What is your constellation deployment plan?

Ahmed: The three satellites are demonstration and pathfinders to test the technology. They're selling data, which is like a big bonus for us. The next big milestone is the Firefly constellation. The Firefly constellation will start with the launch of six satellites that are currently being tested and are booked for launch with SpaceX early next year. With these six, we can do a global revisit on a daily basis and kickstart commercial operations. We can reach a level of capability that our customers want in terms of daily visits. We plan to expand that to a 24-satellite constellation.

VIA SATELLITE: Why do you only need 24 satellites?

Ahmed: We designed our sensor in such a way that we didn't require hundreds of satellites. Each of our satellites is very cost effective, but the total number of satellites also matters. The field of view of our sensor is very wide. It's about four times what you would find in a comparable satellite, in some cases up to 40 times. Since the field of view is higher, we need a lesser number of satellites.

VIA SATELLITE: What does your early adopter customer base look like?

Ahmed: Agriculture is where the largest number of our customers come from. In the mining and oil and gas sector, we help reduce the impact on the environment with regards to leaks. Then we have the environmental climate sector, which includes NGOs and governments, and the government sector. These are the four major industries that we work with. There had been pent-up demand for hyperspectral data. We didn't have to educate them or sell them on it.

We've learned a lot from [our early customers] as well. We share data with them, but they share their feedback with us in terms of what could be better. It’s made us realize what industries we need to focus on. Geographically, I would say about 60 percent of them come from North America, predominantly the U.S. and some in Canada. But 30 percent of it is in Europe, and the rest is spread across Asia and Australia.

VIA SATELLITE: Can you talk more about the agriculture use cases?

Ahmed: For example, one is a fertilizer company. They will use our data to create a nutrient map. Before a crop is sown, you need to look at the soil and identify what nutrients are present or not present for the crops to grow properly. Once they use our satellite data to create a nutrient map for an entire country, they can identify which parts of the farmland are lacking what kinds of nutrients. Then during the growing season itself, you can identify which crop species is growing somewhere, and what subspecies it is, and if there's a pest infestation or disease, and the irrigation level. Existing data can only tell you that it's a crop if it is healthy or not healthy.

VIA SATELLITE: What are new markets you are looking for customers in?

Ahmed: People have been talking about the carbon economy quite a bit, carbon credit marketplaces. A couple of banks and large financial institutions are creating these marketplaces that people can buy and sell carbon credits. But who is actually validating what amount of carbon is stored in a particular tree or in a particular forest? Hyperspectral data can help provide that map at a much higher level of detail. That’s a business case that has only come up very recently. And with the significant push in the U.S. and elsewhere with emissions monitoring in regards to ESG compliance, I think that's where the new use cases are. Traditionally, larger companies and asset managers like BlackRock and others might not have looked at the data, but now they're procuring more and more data to be able to report for ESG compliance.

VIA SATELLITE: Do you consider Pixxel a climate startup?

Ahmed: We do. Obviously, we will sell to multiple industries, but our vision statement is ‘Building a health monitor for the planet.’ We take that very seriously. A lot of our unique use cases come from the climate standpoint. We sell to oil and gas companies, but we’re helping reduce the number of leaks. We work with mining companies, but we're reducing the impact on the forests and biodiversity. We look at all kinds of ESG greenhouse gas. We’re a data company, a space tech company, and also a climate company.

VIA SATELLITE: You said you’ve had a lot of inbound interest, do you have to educate customers on why hyperspectral data is important?

Ahmed: There is a small subset of customers that know how to work with this data, they have already been doing their own R&D. The initial set of customers are skewed toward those kinds of customers. They are the ones that understand and they’re willing to take on the risk. 80 percent of the market has to be educated on what this data can do. That's something that we focus on at Pixxel. We have sales engineers that are devoted to working with clients to show them firsthand what the data can do. In the long run education will be very important.

VIA SATELLITE: Congratulations on your recent funding round with Google as an investor. How did you get Google to come on board as an investor?

Ahmed: We had a set of high quality investors already on board, including Lightspeed and Accenture. We were connected to the Google team, they were looking at investing in companies that they could work with on initiatives regarding using artificial intelligence in agriculture, AI for climate, data that can be ingested into Google Earth. We just hit it off. It was not only a financial investment, in the sense that they're investing to generate returns, but also the fact that this will be a new data set that they can ingest into multiple initiatives. We can use their scale to reach globally and they can use our training data set to increase the offerings that they have.

VIA SATELLITE: What are your growth targets for the next few years with profitability and the number of customers?

Ahmed: We want to be cash flow positive by the end of 2025. There's a good chance of doing that with the six satellites that will go up early next year. By 2026 we want to be self-sustaining in the sense that we don't need to raise additional capital. We have about 60 customers that have signed on for the next three years. We will probably double that to 120 or 150. We want to keep it limited in the first year or so — that way we can provide better service to the small set of customers.

VIA SATELLITE: What has been your experience running a fast-growing global startup with teams in different time zones?

Ahmed: It’s been positive in the sense that we're able to see two radically different kinds of ecosystems. The Indian space ecosystem is as new as it can be. From a private standpoint, it only opened up in the second half of 2020. The space policy only came out two months ago. It’s completely new, there are almost zero customers, the government has no experience buying from private companies. We were the first ones to ever launch a private commercial satellite from India. Everyone is figuring out how you go about building an ecosystem.

The headquarters is in Los Angeles. But more people are in Bangalore, because that's where production is. We are starting to do [production] in the U.S. as well and we will expand that a lot more in the next year. About 75 percent of our company is in Bangalore, the rest of it is in the U.S. and Europe.

We decided to headquarter the company in the U.S. because that's the most mature space ecosystem from a private standpoint. We take the learnings in each country. Recently we've been seeing a significant increase in the relationship between those two countries, which helps us as well. We've seen how to be nimble, flexible, and resourceful in a completely new ecosystem. But we've also seen how it works in a very mature ecosystem, where some things might be taken for granted and other things could be optimized. Just being able to see different perspectives helps us make better decisions.

VIA SATELLITE: What do you think of the opportunity, both for Pixxel and the space startup industry in India, with everything opening up?

Ahmed: I think there are two kinds of opportunities in India. The first is space startups whose markets are limited by the country. So if you're looking at launch startups, for example, there will have to be a requirement for one or two indigenous players in India. You will have startups limited to the country because you need indigenous solutions. Then there are global solutions — completely new opportunities that can be built from India, for the world. But it's a very nascent ecosystem. Only two companies that have raised more than $50 million, us being one.

Given the geopolitical situation, U.S. companies cannot leverage the Chinese ecosystem for manufacturing satellites cheaply. But India could potentially become a hub where satellites or rockets can be built for much lower costs. There's potential for space costs going down even lower thanks to the opening up here. But it will take five to seven years to get there. There are new companies right now that are starting up in early stages that will start to see fruits in the next few years.

VIA SATELLITE: Do you think Pixxel’s success is a sign that space is fully democratized?

Ahmed: There's a long way to go to success for us. We're just starting off. It will come once we are a profitable company. But getting to this point, space has been democratized quite a bit. The supply chain options that we have are immense. We potentially have more than 50 suppliers for each satellite, and they come from almost every continent. We procure competence from all around the globe and there are many options. Costs have gone down, there are many more options and we don't have to be at the mercy of ITAR restrictions. The fact that we had so many options means that this space is democratized. And we could build it very quickly, in a span of two years. That would not have been possible five, six years ago. VS